Mark Marshall
Volunteer assistant coach Mark Marshall collapsed while wrestling with a student… and the wrestlers of the NCAA Division II school in Greensburg, Pa. quickly sprang into action.
"When I looked over, I saw Marshall on his side," Seton Hill freshman wrestler Joseph Miller told KDKA-TV, the CBS affiliate in Pittsburgh. "And I had this feeling. They teach us to recognize, react and respond."
Although wrestling is an individual sport, Seton Hill wrestlers and coaches came together as a team to aid coach Marshall.
Miller and head coach Brian Tucker, both certified in CPR, immediately started taking turns doing chest compressions, while student assistants Ty Lydic and Tanner Druck relayed information between the 911 dispatcher and those performing CPR.
"We were all just communicating together. It was really just a team effort," Miller said.
In the meantime, assistant coach Brett Smith took the other wrestlers out of the building and put them to work outside by helping to direct traffic to make it easier for athletic trainer Jordan Blair to the wrestling room to help coach Miller.
Blair used a defibrillator to help restore Miller's heart function before paramedics took over.
"At that point too, Coach Marshall was coming back through and responding and talking," according to head coach Tucker.
The Seton Hill coaching staff and wrestlers had saved the life of Mark Marshall, 54, a veteran world champion wrestler who team members described as being "in phenomenal shape" but had been diagnosed in 2012 with atrial fibrillation, an abnormal heart rhythm, according to a 2014 story at the official Seton Hill wrestling website.
Marshall, who wrestled at the now-defunct NCAA Division I wrestling program at Indiana State -- college alma mater to world champion Bruce Baumgartner -- has served as a volunteer coach for the Seton Hill Griffins since the program was launched in 2006.
Marshall is scheduled for triple bypass surgery Thursday.
Seton Hill University is a private, Catholic 4-year school located just outside Pittsburgh in Greensburg, Pa. It had been a women-only school until men were admitted in 2002. Seton Hill has an enrollment of approximately 2,500 students. The Griffins wrestling program competes in NCAA Division II.
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